Helloworld Travel has rescheduled its planned acquisition of the Magellan Travel Group, saying it now expects the deal will complete “by the end of February”.

That’s about six weeks later than the original estimate, announced on 19 December 2017, which envisaged the acquisition going through “in early January 2018”.

“We initially believed the transaction would settle in January however due to some complexities with the Magellan membership structure it has taken longer than initially anticipated for Magellan to complete the transaction,” Helloworld Travel chief executive Andrew Burnes explained on Friday.

In a statement issued to the Australian Stock Exchange, Burnes said: “We are confident that the transaction will now complete by the end of the month.”

Burnes also confirmed that Helloworld Travel would release its half yearly results on Monday 19 February.

Meanwhile, in a separate move, Helloworld last Thursday issued 32,750 new shares. The shares were issued for “nil cash consideration” as part of the “Helloworld Travel Member Loyalty Bonus Scheme”.

Shares will rank equally with existing fully paid ordinary shares and will be held in escrow until the vesting date of 31 October 2018. Shares will be forfeited if, at vesting date, the owner is no longer a member of the Helloworld network.